HOTA Factory/Cove makes fortress even more obsolete than it was

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

I keep checking statistics from the most recent patch and I find that specifically cove and factory tends to always outpick fortress.

I love fortress and I would love for you to disprove these points so if any pro players can object I would be happy to eat my words.

Fortress pros as pointed out by heores 3 wiki:

• the only Town to have tier 4 units specjalist - Bron ( in base game )

• death stare gorgons.

• cheap level 6 units.

• great Defence stats.

• Town is hard to siege.

• Armor specjalist.

• Fast tier 3 unit with great debuffs.

• swamp terrain cripling other factions

Now lets say I want to play to these strenghts, why would I ever pick fortress if:

• both cove and Fortress both possess tier 4 unit specialists with objectively better units - automatons and Ayssids.

• cove's Sea dogs are way better than gorgons with their accurate shot.

• factory having some of the hardest to kill units due to repair, meat shield pangoliers, meditating coatles, great armor juggernauts.

• Factory having armor specialists as well.

• Both factions having WAY better shooters.

• cove also having great debuffs from witches.

• cove also being a swamp based biome.

As for wyverns and dragon flies - they might be plenty and strong but they have to solo most of the fights due to lack of shooters and rest of the units being so slow, where as coatles, sandworms, stormbirds and oceanids benefit from shooters covering them.

The only unique part about fortress now are their hard to break sieges which are better to obtain from other players/towns than from your starting Town.

I don't mind other factions being stronger but Fortress seems to not even be considered situational now 😞

[u/PhazonKing14]

your right on alot if stuff but miss the nuance. Fortress’ “power” comes from being able to buy wyvern day 1-2 and the hives being available, hydras being so cheap and having tankier (for the level) level 2 shooters. The excel at that early game push for stuff from sheer numbers, accessablity, and low cost. They are a might faction in a game known for magic abuse, with the def stat hopefully you can slug it out until your enemy dies or runs out of mana.

i agree with you though about alot, wolf rider pickets and alot of the other guarded single use dwellings were added into hota, the giants and the cyclops one is really diminishing fortress’ uniqueness and alot of its core identity.

i always believed fortress to be the worst or second worst with inferno in the base game. Now i feel like they are prob the worst by a bit.

[u/9TEnTaCLeSurPriSe]

The problem with all of your points is that hota being balanced for multiplayer and that means players utilising absolute insanity of the fortress innate tempo with drakon start and extremely easy hive gathering. Compare that to the fact that cove doesnt have anything like one-time use hives to quickly gather forces.

If you compare fully upgraded tempo town vs late-game town then obviously tempo town loses by default. Compare fortress to castle, then it's even worse - archangels being pretty much unrivaled amongst t7 units and possibility of building them first week and on top of that Valeska being more then capable of flagging angel portal first week. Castle town has the best terrain too! If you play pve vs bots, castle is the best town here

Fortress is also extremely cheap and FAST to build on any template

[u/guest_273 → u/9TEnTaCLeSurPriSe]

Fortress is also extremely cheap

Please pay 10 wood to reply to this comment.

[u/BadFurDay]

Fortress is a gambling faction.

You get hives, you are the strongest town in the game.

You don't get hives, you're very average with a weak lategame.

I agree it's sad for a town's power level to rely so much on the random map generator, but when you get the fortress snowball rolling it feels great, you certainly don't regret not picking Cove or Factory instead.

[u/ChristmasDucky → u/BadFurDay]

Noob here (played as a kid, just got back) what do you mean when you say get hives?

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/ChristmasDucky]

On map you can find hives where you fight dragon flies and in return get wyverns, they are one time use, require very specific units to not wipe out your army (because flies will almost always attack first and you cannot use tactics)

[u/ChristmasDucky → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

Oh happy cake day! And thank you for your answer. So I guess when using Fortress, it's important to have some of those hives nearby, to snowball early?

[u/Legal_Weekend_7981 → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

At high skill level hives, pickets and griffin conservatories are the staple of the game. You take them early and snowball. There are templates where people frequently end up with no units from their own towns - everything replaced with angels, wyverns and cyclops. Don't underestimate the ability to bolster one of these.

[u/wofulunicycle → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

There are a ton of other buildings that would give massive advantages to any faction. If you get a close hill fort for example or a bunch of prisons. Relying on rng for certain buildings isn't really a viable strategy.

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/BadFurDay]

Still it's only 1 mechanic to keep them interesting, but True, thats the only reliable tactic if found them useful for rn

[u/Important-Shallot131]

I've always felt you play fortress for beastmasters.  Which imo is still the best hero class.  The factory and captain hero class aren't going get near the defense that a beastmaster typically does.  

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/Important-Shallot131]

Yeah well Dury gets very similar stats to Tazar, biggest difference is water vs fire magic, but other than that its mosty unit specialists - besides wyvern gamble and initial forces you don't rely on them that much

[u/Important-Shallot131 → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

Durry won't usually match tazars defense. She gets more attack but that doesn't synergize quite as well with an armorer specialist. But it's not just those two. All beastmasters start with armorer and mercy tend to have a hodge podge of skills

[u/miki258]

Fortress has number of pros:

• great heroes in general
• cheap units
• Gnolls specialist which is very usefull for number of templates
• fast and cheap wyvern nest
• Dragon fly hives - you can stack even more wyverns and upgrade them

Usually it's considered worse than Cove and better than Factory

[u/Eovacious]

Sounds like you're not a fan of Fortress to begin with, so of course you are biased to compare it unfavorably to towns that suit your tastes and playstyle more.

Most of your comparisons are apples to oranges (vs. Cove), or apples to pencils (vs. Factory). The presence of tier4 specialists that start with their specialty units is pretty much the only thing these have in common (and terrain in case of Fortress vs. Cove); and that's only because HotA developers saw Bron as an example of a good design decision to carry forward, yet respected the lack of similar heroes for other pre-HotA factions. (If anything, it establishes Fortress as strong enough for its 'feature' to be established as the new baseline.)

cove's Sea dogs are way better than gorgons with their accurate shot.

"Factory's Halfling Grenadiers are way better than Ancient Behemoths with their defence reduction." That's what it sounds like. Mighty Gorgons are a mainstay for a reason; they have amazing stats and durability even without their ability, and can truly duke it out with level 7s and win. Sea Dogs' ability is half as effective; on a very flimsy shooting stack; one that is a gimmick third upgrade of an earlygame stack that inevitably suffers attrition and gets phased out of the main army instead of accumulating; and being a gimmick third upgrade, Sea Dogs are immensely overpriced to buy/upgrade in bulk. Outside of Clone shenanigans, you won't see Sea Dogs getting any serious use, they're pretty much a vanity unit for when you already have the game in your pocket; and all it takes for a Black Dragon to nix their killpower is to get in their face, and/or breath at them once.

factory having some of the hardest to kill units due to repair, meat shield pangoliers, meditating coatles, great armor juggernauts.

Factory's design thing is that its army doesn't have a proper frontline outside juggernauts, being rather flimsy in general (and even more flimsy per coin), and having to compensate with gimmicks (active abilities). You're vastly overestimating/misunderstanding Factory if you believe its units to be 'hard to kill'. Reminder that an automaton stack's 30 hp/automaton PLUS 30 hp/automaton you get back when you fully repair it, is still only as much as an ogre mage stack's 60 hp from get-go — and ogre mages (while handy for direct comparison, being on the same level as automatons) belong to a faction less known for its indomitable bulk than the Fortress. Likewise, sticking to same-level comparison, 'meat shield' armadillos' 25 HP are nothing on steel golems' 35; and they come short on survivability next even to royal griffins (25, higher growth). Heck, a stack of energy elementals (level 4 but one of the worst there is, with level 3-lite stats and growth, offsetting the above-the-curve level 2&3 shooters) is more meaty, and no one's calling Conflux a hardy town. All that it says for you to perceive armadillos as 'meat shield' is how bad at taking hits the rest of the Factory units are.

I have to go, will continue this argument later — unless this stirs you to realize the faults in the rest of your comparison yourself.

[u/heroes3freak17 → u/Eovacious]

I was also taken aback by the sea dogs-Mighty gorgons comparison. I don't mind sea dogs at all, but as you point out it takes very little to take them out of the equation completely, which is not the case with MG.

[u/hnlyoloswag]

The hydra with bless are pretty badass because of their damage range

[u/thesavant → u/hnlyoloswag]

One Fort game I started with Robert Downey Jr (Eovacius) in my tav and worked up to double-cloning hydras. Cast it right during your hydra's turn so you can attack all 3 stacks consecutively without their getting a turn to destroy the clones. 3 huge splash attacks with no retaliations. Very memorable game!

[u/hnlyoloswag → u/thesavant]

Yoooo clone?! Ima have to look for that next time I’m playing fortress

[u/DoJebait02 → u/thesavant]

well i usually try to teleport them at turn 2. People or computer like to cast mass slow first when matching Fortress. But ya, a very good new strategy learned

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/hnlyoloswag]

Yet Juggernauts can also zap multiple foes, albeit in way more restricted manner

[u/hnlyoloswag → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

Happy cake day!

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/hnlyoloswag]

Thank you!

[u/DoJebait02 → u/hnlyoloswag]

If you can shield, bless and teleport them into central enemy formation, then it's very very devastating

[u/rockady]

I don't consider myself a pro player, but from my pov, fortress has always been towards the bottom of the pack, with probably only inferno on a lower spot.

The addition of cove and factory doesn't feel like it makes fortress obsolete, just that fortress hasn't changed its overall standing unfortunately.

Each town has its own strengths and weaknesses. Fortress is surely cheaper to build compared to the other 2, and i would argue that on average, you would get a better roll on week 1 army-wise than with the other 2, maybe with the exception of Henrietta-Factory where over 100 ranged t1s day1 is perhaps the best roll, although i feel like the halflings would get folded in no time against another ranged specialist (valeska or ivor specifically) in a week 1 encounter.

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/rockady]

That is quite valid! Smaller maps seem fit for Such tactics. Still I always prefered stronghold for rushes. . .

[u/SeeShark]

I feel like your logic is a bit flawed. You list all the advantages of a given town, and then show how all of them belong to one of two other towns. Neither of those other towns have all of Fortress's advantages.

No town is unique. Fortress has that exact list of pros, and no other town has all of them.

[u/CaptainMoonunitsxPry]

One thing to add for the pros for fortress: Really good might heroes, high chance of armorer, offense, and Earth magic. Their casters are def limited by the level 3 mage guild, you have to go and conquer other towns, which is very map dependent, that or end the game before others can get their mage guilds up, again very map dependent.

[u/PkerBadRs3Good]

I keep checking statistics from the most recent patch and I find that specifically cove and factory tends to always outpick fortress.

where are these statistics?

[u/Eovacious]

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroes3/comments/1ixvlm1/hota_factorycove_makes_fortress_even_more/meq2ay3/

Continuing where I left off…

great armor juggernauts.

Juggernauts have 300 HP but pretty low attack/defence, so hardly 'great armor'. They are inferior defensively to titans, black dragons, and barely superior to haspids. Now, they definitely are superior to chaos hydras — and so are the units above — and doesn't that clue you in that the comparison isn't legitimate?

On more practical terms, dreadnoughts (as juggernauts are definitely not relevant at all) are one of the bulkiest tier 7's, and the only true 'frontline' unit of the Factory. But, they still had to be buffed (cheapened down to, surprise, hydra levels, in terms of both dwelling cost and gold cost) in order to make them see a modicum of play; and the build path leading to them is otherwise the most laughably flimsy one, delaying even worms (discount Rocs) in favour of a level 6 shooter whose HP/growth equal Marksmen and fall behind Mages. Given which one will get targeted more, it kinda evens out.

Of course if you factor in both couatls (upgraded ones, at that, as only Crimson Couatls' meditation actually helps defensively — basic couatls meditating simply means the damage gets to be redirected to other, flimsier units in your army) AND dread/juggers, the Factory's 'power ceiling' ends up being a lot higher than a Fortress', growth for growth. But that's a prohibitively costly, lategame scenario; Fortress never was in competition with lategame powerhouse towns growth for growth, nor needed to. Even without counting in the snowball effect, you could almost build two Fortresses for the resource expenditure your 'two upgraded level 7s' Factory requires, and have twice the growth.

(You would've made a somewhat better point if you instead singled out Nyx Warriors as a premier defensive unit. But as other posters have already noted, the Fortress doesn't derive its defensive profile from unit stats — it is at a disadvantage next to lategame towns, and even to the Stronghold lineup — but from amazing defensive heroes, economics, and a very good spread of passive-aggressive unit abilities.)

Factory having armor specialists as well.

You can't simultaneously count Bron start and guaranteed Tazar as an advantage, pick one or the other. Also, while Dury's starting skills are nice, Mercenaries are rather mid, in terms of skill gains; above demoniacs and alchemists, but way below better-optimized warrior classes. Meanwhile, the beastmasters — not just Tazar — are all guaranteed to give you great defensive synergy between guaranteed Armorer and hyperfocused Defence stat; and they just got indirectly buffed, as they have good chances to learn First Aid (which mercenaries sans Floribert can't even use if they learn it, unless they get to buy a First Aid Tent from a non-native town) which now buffs HP and compounds with Armorer/Defence.

Both factions having WAY better shooters.

Well d'uh. So does Tower, Conflux, and pretty much any faction.

cove also being a swamp based biome.

Not functionally different from Tower's snow terrain also posing a major disadvantage to heroes with non-native armies. At any rate, how does that 'make Fortress even more obsolete' and not the Cove itself? At any rate, the Fortress is better at creeping its Swamp than the Cove, as serpentflies (not to mention dragonflies) provide superior speed to anything Cove can spare.

why would I ever pick fortress if:

Now first, the obvious part that just about everyone already alluded to: Fortress full lineup (a weekly growth with all dwellings and horde built, a castle, and a Grail building because that was quicker to test using Good to Go) — $39900+3 sulphur. Cove full lineup (same terms, Grail included) = $44740+6 sulphur ($42640 if you stick to corsairs over vanity dogs). Factory's full lineup = $52040+9 crystals. That's not going into building costs ('having' to build, let alone upgrade, two full-price level 7 dwellings doesn't do the Factory any services. Luckily, if your gameplan for Factory is to build it up to dual level 7's and play with a super-army, you're playing it wrong; the point of having two building paths is to have choice which one to rush).

Also, you can't theorycraft the value of day 1/2 wyverns, it's a matter of experience to realize their potential. Likewise, no amount of theorycraft can beat the fact that Mighty Gorgons munch through level 7 units like almost no other unit can (Ancient Behemoths and Haspids come close, and Ghost Dragons can get a lucky roll, but those are all level 7 themselves), all they need is a bit of Haste to send them charging.

But for me, another oft overseen/rarely verbalized advantage to the Fortress, one that is in a large part responsible for its ability to hold on as 'THE defensive town' despite rather weaksauce unit statistics… Is the lack of obvious weak points for opponents to target in its lineup. A Fortress army is a well-distributed, multi-headed threat: focus the tier7, and you spend your time killing a relatively low-damage stack while Mighty Gorgons go to town on your own tiers 6&7; focus the Mighty Gorgons, and they won't go down easily at all, while the hydras get to eat your army without retaliation, and the wyvern powerstack picks off the weaker stacks after dragonflies weaken them further; focusing the shooters like you do in other matchups does nothing — whoop-de-doo, you killed some lizardmen who were hardly relevant to begin with; the gnolls are no halberdiers, but hit hard — better get rid of them sooner than later, too; and even basilisks left unchecked threaten to sooner or later make that Gaze Attack roll and disable a stack of yours. It's all about synergy, something that Inferno attempts too but fails.

The Fortress is also amazing in creature banks from get-go, which is something Cove and Factory both struggle with; this places it closer to the Dungeon or Stronghold.

[u/Laanner]

You forgot that cove also have 2 mage heroes that have school of magic from the beginning. The only town that had that gimmick is conflux.

And factory have better archery specialist and another scout specialist.

[u/Legal_Weekend_7981]

Both Cove and Factory are considered below average towns on most typical templates. The problem is that while they are overpowered on paper, in practise they are only strong in some convenient scenarios.

Cove:

1) Swamp as a home terrain is considered a downside, because it makes using troops from creature banks and extra heroes pain in the ass.

2) Most of their units prove underwhelming in tough messy fights like Utopias or guards that reach you in one turn.

3) Top speed is 12, and only on T7+. That's low.

Factory:

They sort of... don't have anything to begin with? Their only 'op' unit is halfling, but their specialist has horrible starting skills. Everything else is ok, but not strong. Abilities on their units may sound overpowered, but, as I said in the beginning, only in convenient scenarios where you have everything set up for them. For example, repair combo is difficult to pull off to full extent. If engineers are your powerstack, you don't want to waste their turn repairing. If automatons are your powerstack, the AI will typically target someone else. If neither are, the combo doesn't impact the game much. It's not useless, but it's not as impactful as you might initially think.

Also, neither of the towns has an OP building like stables, mana vortex or skeleton transformer.

[u/PismaniyeTR]

im a noob, why fortress is better to defend during siege please?

[u/MimiKal → u/PismaniyeTR]

Double moat and a lot of specialised buildings that buff the defense during a siege

[u/LengthinessNovel6603]

There's no point in having such a discussion without specifying which template it's related to.

[u/DoJebait02]

The other 2 towers are much much more expensive compared to Fortress. Fortress is still very reliable in wyvern soon farming strategy. Soon lv6 monster is still very unique and let be honest, nothing can replace death stare (even most combats are decided before my bulls reach to anything).

Unit by unit, Fortress still one of the lowest in term of late game in the origin. The Cove and Factory really bring new flavor to the game.e

[u/Igor369]

great Defence stats.

This is often misinterpreted by many people. The main source of Fortress' resilience comes from Beastmasters, Town's double moat and special buildings, the average defense of Fortress' upgraded units is 12,21 while e.g. Dungeon has 11,71. Likewise the base + horde growth of units' Effective HP vs 10 Att units of Fortress is 182,44 while Dungeon has 182,78. Fortress units are not exceptionally tanky AT ALL. They are just quite defensively cost efficient... but then in defensive cost efficiency they are beaten by Rampart ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Mephala is literally tankier than Tazar when limited to their native creatures.

Also Rampart generates the most effective HP per week out of all towns.

cove's Sea dogs are way better than gorgons with their accurate shot.

1—50 Sea Dogs may kill 0—1 enemy units with Accurate Shot (with range penalty)

1—10 Mighty Gorgons may kill 0—1 enemy units with Death Stare

Lol you did not even bother checking the wiki? Even with the 7 growth they are worse than gorgons...

Both factions having WAY better shooters.

What shooters? The lvl 3, lvl 5 or lvl 6 shooters? Well no shit they are better than Lizardmen... they are higher level XDDD.

cove also having great debuffs from witches

...ok so?... "Becase Liches have better AoE than Magogs, Inferno is shit and Necro is strictly better". Yeah flawless logic here. You can also make a few 1 stacks of Dragon Flies FOR PENNIES and have multiple pseudo dispel+weakness casts in a turn. Can you do that with witches?... Not to mention uber fast secondary heroes with cheap as fuck dragon flies.

As for wyverns and dragon flies - they might be plenty and strong but they have to solo most of the fights due to lack of shooters and rest of the units being so slow, where as coatles, sandworms, stormbirds and oceanids benefit from shooters covering them.

...what?... First of all... lack of shooters??? Did you forget about Lizardmen while writing this post??? XD Maybe you are unable to keep your Lizardmen stack healthy through early game? Well that just screams "skill issue" for me bro.

And what even is the issue in having wyverns "solo"? Going for a single powerstack early with a bunch of 1 stack weenies to tank retaliation is literally the most used strategy in EVERY town...

Did you use AI to write this post???????

Fortress did suck but mostly due to Witches and Eagle eye being garbage. If you went with Tazar who is GUARANTEED when playing Fortress (unlike going e.g. Castle and hoping to roll him in Tavern) and got a wyvern power stack early, Fortress can be strong as fuck.

[u/mihokspawn]

Only town with tier 4 spec??? Vokial? Sorsha? Krelion? 2 fire ele specialists and Aeris...

[u/guest_273]

I kind of agree.

Imho the 'easy' solution would be to give Cove a new biome 'shore-line' or 'sandy-shores' or 'coastline'. It would have to be different from the desert biome however. This would reenable Fortress to have its own unique terrain.

But imho the hard truth is that Fortress would need one of its creatures fundamentally changed or even replaced. Lizardmen, Serpent Flies, Gorgons and Wyverns are too iconic.

So that leaves Gnolls, Basilisks and Hydras. So do we replace their tier 7 with a new Flying / Shooting creature? Do we replace their Basilisks with a new Flying / Shooting creature? Or do we give Gnolls a 'tier 3 upgrade' like Seadogs have? (Gnolls with Crossbows would be cool imho.)

[u/thesavant]

Lizardmen need to have their dwelling numbers like doubled lol

[u/Fun_Concentrate_4827 → u/thesavant]

This could be a nice selling point forcing the enemy to actually opose defensive nature of fortress. Maybe a skill that makes lizardmen harder to shoot down from a distance. This would implement a nice openers where you decide if you want your flies to stop enemy flying units or kill their own shooters. It would also benefit basilisks

[u/thesavant → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

Yeah Liz definitely need a buff or special skill of some kind. Halflings are almost essentially better in a one-to-one comp lol

[u/guest_273 → u/Fun_Concentrate_4827]

I would give Lizardmen the Regeneration ability. The one that Wraiths and Trolls have. It would save a few of them early game, would make fighting neutral stacks of them a menace though.